Chương 10
“What happened?”
“She was sitting by the door.”
Grace stared at the blanket.
“She kept saying, ‘This isn’t what I agreed to.’”
Patel wrote something down.
“Do you know where she is now?”
“No.”
“I do,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“Nora rents an apartment above the old pharmacy in Barrington.”
Patel’s eyebrows lifted.
“How do you know that?”
“My father paid her rent after her husband died.”
Grace stared at me.
I had never told her that because until tonight Nora had been one of a hundred people orbiting the Hale family whose lives I had never considered important enough to mention.
Patel stood.
“We’ll contact her.”
He paused at the door.
“One more thing.”
His face changed slightly.
“Your mother’s attorneys have arrived at the estate.”
I almost laughed.
Of course they had.
Grace did not.
Patel continued.
“They’re claiming the confinement was part of a private medical arrangement requested by Dr. Mercer.”
Grace’s eyes sharpened.
“Then Mercer is going to say it was her idea.”
“That’s possible.”
“And she’ll say it was his.”
“Also possible.”
Patel closed his notebook.
“That is why records matter.”
After he left, Grace stared at the door.
Then she looked down at our son.
“What happens if they both lie?”
I moved my chair closer, but not close enough to touch her.
“Then we find the part they forgot to lie about.”
Grace gave me a tired, suspicious look.
“That sounded like something your father would say.”
I almost smiled.
“He usually said it about taxes.”
Her mouth twitched despite herself.
Then our son sneezed.
Both of us looked down.
He sneezed again.
Grace laughed.
It was small and tired and real.
I heard myself laugh too.
For three seconds, we were simply two new parents amazed that a six-pound human being could make such an indignant face.
Then Grace’s expression softened.
“He needs a name.”
I nodded.
“We had one.”
“We had three.”
“You rejected two.”
“One was terrible.”
“Elliot is not terrible.”
“It sounds like a child who reports other children for running.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Grace looked surprised.
Then she smiled.
The smile vanished almost immediately, but I had seen it.
“What about Noah?” I asked.
She looked down at our son.
His tiny hand had escaped the blanket.
Grace offered him one finger.
He closed his fist around it.
“Noah.”
She tried the name quietly.
I waited.
Grace looked at me.
“Noah Daniel Hale?”
My throat tightened.
“You still want my name in there?”
“I’m not deciding what I want from you tonight.”
Fair.
“But he should know who his father is.”
I looked at our son.
“I’d like that.”
Grace nodded once.
“Noah, then.”
A nurse entered with a clear plastic bassinet.
Grace immediately stiffened.
“I’m not taking him anywhere,” the nurse said.
“Just helping you settle in.”
Grace relaxed by inches.
The nurse checked her IV and smiled down at Noah.
“Congratulations.”
After she left, Grace closed her eyes.
“You can hold him.”
I thought I had misheard.
“What?”
“I need to sleep.”
She opened her eyes again.
“And I don’t want him in that plastic thing.”
I stood carefully.
She transferred Noah into my arms.
My son weighed almost nothing.
I had held guns, contracts, steering wheels, my dying father’s hand, and Grace’s shaking fingers during the ambulance ride.
Nothing had ever made me feel so terrified of my own strength.
Grace watched me adjust him awkwardly.
“Support his head.”
“I am.”
“You’re supporting his neck.”
“Those seem extremely close together.”
“They are not the same thing.”
“I’ve been a father for forty minutes.”
“Forty-seven.”
I looked at the clock.
“Of course you counted.”
Her eyes were already closing.
I sat beside the bed with Noah against my chest.
Grace’s breathing slowly deepened.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Outside the room, footsteps and carts moved through the hospital.
Somewhere a baby cried.
Someone laughed down the hall.
A cleaning machine hummed past the doorway.
Noah made a soft clicking sound in his sleep.
I looked at Grace.
There was a faint red mark around one wrist.
I had not seen it before.
Maybe I had not wanted to.
She stirred.
“Daniel?”
“I’m here.”
Her eyes remained closed.
“Lock the door.”
Hospitals did not work that way.
I knew that.
Instead of explaining, I stood, crossed the room, and asked the nurse whether security could keep someone outside.
Ten minutes later, an officer took a chair across from our door.
When I returned, Grace opened her eyes.
“Locked?”
“Better.”
She looked through the window at the uniformed officer.
Then she closed her eyes again.
For the first time since I had found her warning carved into the wall, Grace slept without anyone deciding for her when she was allowed to wake.
I woke in the chair with Noah still against my chest and a numb left arm trapped beneath the weight of his blanket.
The room was gray with early morning.
Grace was awake.
She was watching me.
For one stupid second I smiled because that was what I had done every morning of our marriage when I caught her looking at me first.
Then I remembered where we were.
Her eyes dropped to Noah.
“How long was I out?”
“About three hours.”
“That’s not long.”
“It looked like three good hours.”
She shifted carefully and winced.
I started to stand.
She lifted a hand.
“I’m fine.”
I sat back down.
The instinct to help had become another thing I could no longer trust automatically.
Grace pushed her hair away from her face.
“Did anyone come?”
“Detective Patel called once.”
“Your mother?”
“Sixteen times.”
Grace’s mouth tightened.
“You counted?”
“I stopped answering after zero.”
That earned a faint breath through her nose.
Not a laugh.
Close enough.
Noah stirred between us.
His face crumpled before he made a sound.
Grace held out her arms.
I passed him over.
The movement was awkward.
May you like
My elbow caught the rail of the bed.
Noah protested.
